@Mark B. oddly enough having given blood before through the Red Cross qualified me.

I just had my first opportunity (well, the first time I actually considered it) to do this a couple weeks ago, and while it didn't work out on that particular deal (seller wasn't interested), I frickin' love this concept.Being able to save one whole set of closing costs and not having to commit to a profit margin for the seller upfront gives you a lot of leverage to make a thinner deal work when it otherwise wouldn't.I can't wait to start proposing this on future deals

That's ok.Basically what you're seeing is sharks circling the smell of blood in the water.

You can try to get blood out of a rock and recover money from her, but from a kharma standpoint it is just bad energy.

So even starting out a step ahead of others, it still takes a long time, blood, sweat, and tears.If you're looking for reasonable time lines for someone who isn't currently involved in real estate (and I admittedly don't know your full story either, so maybe you are involved with real estate in some fashion currently), I'd say it'll take 12 years to build a solid business you can live off of, if you did it 24/7/365 for all of those years. 

My mother hires a second listing agent. the guy claims to be an investor and flipper, and seems a lot more knowledgeable than the last agent, but I think when an out of state woman inherits a free and clear home in an opportune location with incredibly high holding costs, everyone smells a little blood in the water... hell i would...

I'm not sure I fully understand your question, but if the property is worth $80,000 with a $45,000 balance, you could refinance out about $19,000, though after closing costs that number would be a bit thinner.

I don't generally find it advantageous to try to squeeze every drop of blood out of a rock, as you then start pushing up vacancy rates, having much fewer qualified tenants, etc. 

Looking back, they weren't so ridiculous,but I learned how to better assess estimates as we put in blood, sweat, and tears ourselves so that was worth it.

Anyone can get high blood lead levels, the law only specifies under 6 because it affects the developing brain more severely then a it affects a fully developed brain.